Mary and Pagan Virgin Mothers

Very often, skeptics claim that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is just another version of other pagan virgin mothers such as Isis. I have done some work to demonstrate that often these pagan mothers are not quite so virgin as Jesus Mythicists like to suggest. However, I would like to come at this from another angle. What people are often doing is comparing later Roman Catholic descriptions of the Virgin Mary and not what the Bible says. If this virgin motif is so important and the key to Jesus’ pagan origins, it must be asked: why is the virginity mentioned only in two Gospels and never again in the rest of the New Testament? In fact, Mary’s virginity is only mentioned three times in the entire Bible and she is never called the ‘Virgin Mary.’ I am not denying that the virgin birth is important, but it is not what Jesus Mythicists claim. Whenever one encounters these type of claims, we must always go back to what the Bible actually says. Pagan concepts may indeed have influenced later concepts of Mary, but they did not influence the New Testament.

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2 thoughts on “Mary and Pagan Virgin Mothers”

Steve,
Happy New Years.
I am interested in your thoughts concerning a theological puzzle I find myself in currently. Without a long explanation I’ll get straight to the question. Is Dispensationalism considered synonomous with Evangelicalism? I am especially “vexed” by the pervasiveness of dispensational eschatology and its influence in the “evanglical” churches, esp. CBOQ, where we serve. Thanx & blessings, Dean.

Dean, good to hear from you. Dispensationalism is not synonymous with evangelicalism but rather a smaller segment of evangelicalism. While I know some dispensationalists in the CBOQ, there is more to it than just a belief in the tribulation and millennium. Here is an article on dispensationalism: http://www.theopedia.com/Dispensationalism. Most of the CBOQ pastors I know would not hold to all the tenets of dispensationalism.